The prior art certainly discloses a wide variety of devices designed to maintain a wearer's hair in a desired configuration. Commonly, these devices simultaneously serve as accessories for improving and completing a wearer's overall appearance. For example, traditional headbands comprising a relatively wide horseshoe-shaped band of resiliently-flexible material such as plastic are well known. Teeth included on an inside surface of many such headbands assist the devices in controlling a wearer's hair. Other prior art devices include endless elasticized bands retained in a fabric sleeve that commonly are used for surrounding and restraining a length of hair such as a ponytail. These and other hair fastening devices undoubtedly are well known to one skilled in the art.
Unfortunately, however, such prior art devices have been seen to exhibit a number of disadvantages that have been recognized persistently by those who wear them. This is particularly the case with the horseshoe-shaped headbands that commonly are used to retain the top portion of a wearer's hair. Among the problems exhibited by such prior art headbands, which are normally made from resilient plastic, is that wearers commonly suffer from headaches caused by an incessant pressing by the headbands on the sides of the wearer's head. Many might further note that, at least relative to present-day styles, such headbands have come to be perceived as aesthetically unattractive.
At least one attempt has been made to provide a headband formed of a simple length of ductile wire. In use, this style of headband is bent to an arcuate form to accommodate the size and shape of a wearer's head. One may reasonably presume that a wearer of such a headband would be less likely to suffer from headaches even with prolonged wearing of the headband because the headband can be particularly adapted to suit the shape and size of each wearer's head and can be further widened as circumstances require. Furthermore, some might opine that such headbands present a more modern and pleasing appearance relative to today's styles than traditional wide headbands.
Disadvantageously, however, these benefits achieved by simple wire headbands are tempered by a multiplicity of shortcomings from which they suffer. A most significant problem, a problem aggravated by the sheer simplicity of the strip of wire, is that the headband demonstrates little ability to remain in a fixed position on a wearer's head. As a result, these prior art headbands often fail to restrain a wearer's hair effectively, and, to the frustration of the wearer, the bands frequently require readjustment.
With the foregoing in mind, it becomes clear that an invention providing a solution to one or more of these problems demonstrated by prior art devices would be useful. However, a hairband presenting a solution to all of the previously-described problems while exhibiting heretofore unrealized advantages undoubtedly would represent a marked advance in the art.